cogency

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. The state of being cogent; the characteristic or quality of being reasonable and persuasive.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. The quality of being cogent; power of compelling conviction; conclusiveness; force.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. Power of proving or of producing belief; the quality of being highly probable or convincing; force; credibility: as, the cogency of an alleged motive, or of evidence; the cogency of one's arguments or reasoning.

His truisms and verbal propositions, his dogmatic assertions and unreal demonstrations, savour more of theology than of political science, while his quasi-mathematical method of reasoning from abstract formulæ, assumed to be axiomatic, gives a deceptive air of exactness and cogency which is apt to be mistaken for sound logic.

My purpose has been, not to enable those among you who have paid no attention to these subjects before, to leave this room in a condition to decide upon the validity or the invalidity of the hypothesis of evolution; but I have desired to put before you the principles upon which all hypotheses respecting the history of Nature must be judged; and furthermore, to make apparent the nature of the evidence and the amount of cogency which is to be expected and may be obtained from it.

As it becomes increasingly clear that the outfit's core leadership in Pakistan are in decline, its position as a primary national security threat to the West now depends on the cogency of its regional franchises and allies.

This is only to assert greater cogency, greater efficacy, better foundations, sounder arguments, the wisdom of wider experience — which is, I think, what Abigail means by “claiming authority” for her assumptions, claiming the greater consideration due an expert.